Commissioner General of Prisons Wycliff Ogallo has warned officers against engaging in crime.
In a memo sent to regional prison bosses, he directed commanders to increase supervision to instil strict discipline in officers after deployed to perform daily duties.
“It has been observed more lately that our staff are getting more and more engaged in unbecoming conduct and behaviour,” Ogallo said in a memo dated December 31, 2019.
He said some officers were arrested recently for ferrying bhang, impersonating police officers, reckless shootings, conning and uttering false documents.
The warning comes at the backdrop of increased cases of bizarre collusion between officers in the National Police Service and criminals. They take advantage of their paramilitary training to engage in crimes such as murder, robbery, kidnapping, extortion, gunrunning and drug trafficking.
“This is a clear manifestation of lack of proper supervision from the basic level of corporals to a higher level of duty officers, security officers and officers in charge,” Ogallo added.
Officers in the National Police Service are also said to be complicit. The latest incident is that of a police officer and a prison warder who were arrested while ferrying 20 kilogrammes of bhang in a government vehicle on the Isiolo-Moyale highway in Lerata.
Sgt Morris Mugambi and warder Stephen Kamau of the Marsabit Prison were arrested on December 27, 2019.
In November, another police officer attached to the Rapid Deployment Unit in Wajir county was arrested with 15 kilogrammes of bhang in the same area.
“Besides the acts/commissions being criminal in nature, they are giving the service a bad image. This cannot be entertained any longer,” the prisons boss said.
He directed that all officers be supervised and monitored "in all manners appropriate" before, during and even after deployment. "This will help in curbing these unwanted and unwarranted vices."
Inspector General Hillary Mutyambai and Police Spokesman Charles Owino have admitted in the past of increased criminal activities of men and women in uniform and promised deal with the matter.
In measures aimed at reining in rogue officers, Mutyambai ordered that no police officer would be allowed to retain a firearm while off-duty. He instructed the undercover police unit code-named SPIV to start wearing uniforms.
He announced the change in a meeting attended by top commanders of different units in October. But the issue seems to have engraved slowly. It appears a hard nut to crack given that more officers are being arrested over crime.
Following heightened narcotics crackdown in Coast in August, two constables identified as Boniface Korir and William Chengo were caught on CCTV camera hiding cocaine in a toilet at Manyani Maximum Security Prison in Voi.
They were arrested by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Speaking at the Prison Staff Training College in Ruiru in July, Ogallo said, “The public expects to be served by committed, accountable and honest prison officers who observe the rule of law as enshrined in the Constitution.”
The NPS came under scrutiny after four relatives, a KDF officer and three Administration Police constables were nabbed in connection with Sh72 million heist at StanChart ATM, in Nairobi West.
